Until Wednesday I hadn’t been for a run for a while, despite very good intentions. Then a couple of weeks ago we went to the beach and I ended up in my running shoes in the water thanks to a certain 3-year-old who wasn’t listening very well, but that was a perfect excuse to replace my way-too-old runners and kickstart the process. Which I did, and thus I present you with:
10 signs it’s been too long since your last run:
- Your sports bra is so well buried you practically have to excavate your underwear drawer to find it.
- Your dog doesn’t even look up when you get your runners out, because he certainly wouldn’t think to expect he might be getting a run.
- Your dog also doesn’t get up from the couch when you actually put your runners on because, well, see #2.
- You have come to associate your running hat with covering up (bad) weekend hair.
- You put your running vest on and it’s a little, um, tight around the hips. (Stupid vest.)
- When getting your running vest out of the closet, you notice that your running jacket looks awfully clean, as though it had been hanging there for a while without being worn (or something).
- You can’t find the shorter leash you usually use when running with your dog, so you take the retractable one instead. Meh, it works.
- When you get to the trail, your dog goes absolutely berserk. (Yes, all right, it’s been awhile. Noted.)
- Running hurts.
- Despite the hurt, when you get going at a decent pace your thought process goes like this: “Hey, look at me! Not bad. This is practically a tempo run! WOO HOO! I OWN THIS TRAIL! Except… Gosh, it kind of hurts to breathe. What’s that, dog? Oh, you have to pee? Okay, let’s pause for a minute. I don’t mind. In fact, let’s just walk the rest of the route. It will be good for me to properly cool down. Yeah, that’s it…”
And then, possibly, when you get to the end of the trail you’ll feel like a bit of a wuss for having quit early because, despite the pain – and the pouring rain – the run felt pretty damn great.
Lesson learned. I can’t wait to go again.
